Hopper - will 3 tuners be enough?

[mfoster711]

There seems to be a wide variety of opinions on whether or not having only 3 tuners in the Hopper will be enough. This has come up many times on various threads. Some people seem adamant that 3 is enough for anybody while others seem to think nobody is going to be happy with only 3. So, to help gauge everybody's opinion I thought I would post a poll on here.

Don't forget to vote above.

 

[JohnL]

As a whole home solution 3 tuners is totally insufficient. I find the new DirecTV HR34's 5 tuner limit to bare bones. I'd like to see 6 or more tuners as a whole home DVR solution. If you have 2-4 persons in a household you can easily have 3 or more shows that are to be recorded at the same time slot. If that is the case you won't have enough tuners to be able to record and be able to serve live content to multiple TV's at the same time.

John

 

[dare2be]

3 person household, 2 tvs, will probably expand to 3 tvs. 3 tuners will be enough, once the OTA tuner is included.

 

[Mr Tony]

your options are very confusing

For some people this will work great (especially if you record a ton of the Big 4 network programming)
For some it is useless because they dont record network programming
For some they wont ever hear about it because they are still using the same 311's they've had for 9-10 years
For some they will bitch about it no matter what even though they wont get one

and for some Dish could put 12 tuners in it and they wont get it because Dish doesnt carry the programming they want so they wouldnt switch providers

 

[whatchel1]

What's with all polls on the thing? :

 

[mfoster711]

What's with all polls on the thing? :

There is another thread that has a poll and is asking if 3 tuners will be enough? Sorry if so but I missed that.

 

[TG2]

Whats going to be a driving force or a potential killer of it, if the hardware has a high failure rate.

The moment a user finds out that their single dead hopper means that their entire house will be without Dish for 3 to 5 days.. and the Joeys are useless without the Hopper.. you'll see them increase the desire to have TWO hoppers or like the current Directv solution (hr25's connect but also have their own sat tuner)

Dish needs to find ways to incorporate the joey into a joey+ model like someone else posted the desire to have..

 

[GaryPen]

The poll does seem somewhat pointless, as none of us have anyway of knowing what percentage of viewers want what.

OTOH, if you asked us what we personally think about 3 tuners being enough in our own households, that would be a worthwhile poll! (But, you specifically state you don't wish to know that, for some odd reason.)

 

[mfoster711]

your options are very confusing

For some people this will work great (especially if you record a ton of the Big 4 network programming)
For some it is useless because they dont record network programming
For some they wont ever hear about it because they are still using the same 311's they've had for 9-10 years
For some they will bitch about it no matter what even though they wont get one

and for some Dish could put 12 tuners in it and they wont get it because Dish doesnt carry the programming they want so they wouldnt switch providers

Yep, there are lots of things to consider. I just thought I would add a poll asking everybody how many tuners they believe most Dish customers need as opposed to how many they personally need. As a family of 4 I personally need more than 4 tuners but I voted "60% don't need 3 tuners, 30% need more but are dumb and happy, and 10% want more tuners". I bet Dish has a lot of customers that are single people and older people that don't have kids at home that could care less about having more than 3 tuners. When I look at larger families that could use more tuners I believe many are just dumb and don't know much about technology and are going to take what they get.

 

[mfoster711]

The poll does seem somewhat pointless, as none of us have anyway of knowing what percentage of viewers want what.

There are a lot of installers that post on here and I was really thinking of them.

 

[GaryPen]

There are a lot of installers that post on here and I was really thinking of them.

You should probably make that clear in the poll, as subscribers would have no idea what percentage of subs have what.

A poll asking what subscribers think about how the number of tuners would work with their own households and usage patterns might be pretty interesting, as well.

 

[whatchel1]

The poll does seem somewhat pointless, as none of us have anyway of knowing what percentage of viewers want what.

OTOH, if you asked us what we personally think about 3 tuners being enough in our own households, that would be a worthwhile poll! (But, you specifically state you don't wish to know that, for some odd reason.)

Exactly what I was pointing out. How about making a better one and a mod killing this one.

 

[mfoster711]

Good grief! In case you did not know the typical person on this forum is not an average Dish customer. Most on here are more demanding and more knowledgeable about technology than your average Dish customer. Asking a poll of satelliteguys users based on their own personal experience would not be very representative of Dish customers. On the other hand, there are a lot of Dish techs that post on here that see a lot of typical customers and they may be able to speak as to what they see in most homes. Also, if us satelliteguys users OPEN OUR FREAKING minds and think of all our neighbors and friends and what THEIR needs might be you could better answer the question.

 

[joshua.mcglothlen]

we need to do something to compete with other companies multiple dvr tuners. If someone leaves uverse and they can record 4 things at once and then get Dish and can only record 2. I have lost plenty of customer that way. They told me they would rather pay more to record more. So 3 turners are a start but we will need alot more if we are going to compete with other providers

 

[cosmo_kramer]

Wake me up when the Hopper is finally released. I'm all Hopper'ed out....

 

[MikeD-C05]

I think that DISH should of included a potential for 6 tuners in their new hopper system. By leaving a module opening to add more tuners like they did the ota module on the 722k . Then only one hopper would be needed and if you needed more than 3 tuners , you could plug in another satellite module that splits into 3 tuners with the add on module. You could still use just one sat dish 1000.2/1000.4 and plug in three runs into the switch and get satellite for up to 6 tuners. While they were at it , add the usb ota tuner too, for any hopper or joey. Then you would make just about all people happy.

Of course with DISH , they would of come up with a new fee to be charged for using the satellite tuner module , making it too high I'm sure. IF DISH could only understand that if you give customers something of value for their money , that takes into account their needs, and withOUT Gouging them, with extra made up ,charge it because we can DISH FEES, they would have NO problems retaining existing subs and attracting new ones too. This would make their revenues soar and their sub count too. The best way to increase revenue is to Grow the company and the best way to grow the company is to make it more attractive than the competition. So CUT OUT all the extra ,unreasonable FEES you already have in place and don't even think about charging them for the hopper/joey system Charlie!:rant:

 

[Neutron]

I would redo this poll with 3 answers:

3 Tuners are enough for my household.
3 Tuners are not enough for my household.
It doesn't matter to me one way or the other.

 

[gadams]

I think that DISH should of included a potential for 6 tuners in their new hopper system.

Dish DID include a potential for 6 tuners in the new hopper system. It's called a second Hopper! For most households, IMHO, 3 tuners will be sufficient. If you need more, a second Hopper gives you a total of 6 and integrates seamlessly with the first Hopper! Plus the external OTA antenna, when it gets here, will add one or more OTA tuners as well.

What don't you people get about this? Hopper is not a one-box Whole House solution, but it is a Whole House solution. If, as I believe, the average household doesn't need more than 3 tuners, tuners 4, 5,etc. in every box would be a waste of money for Dish. For those who need more, add a second Hopper. In this way, one hardware design meets the need of both low-end and high-end customers.

Of course I can see the advantages of one huge central server, which is a legitimate approach. This is a different approach, and I can't see any reason why it won't work just as well for most people.

 

[navychop]

OK installers: How many receivers do you normally install at one household, and how many TVs are thereby served?

I suspect most Dish customers (or at least a plurality) have one box serving one TV.

And for those households with a second TV, are they more likely to take the simple, obvious approach and get a second box, or are they willing to learn about "TV2" and "Home Distribution?"

We're talking about Joe Six Pack here, who has never even heard of SatelliteGuys.

 

[whatchel1]

Dish DID include a potential for 6 tuners in the new hopper system. It's called a second Hopper! For most households, IMHO, 3 tuners will be sufficient. If you need more, a second Hopper gives you a total of 6 and integrates seamlessly with the first Hopper! Plus the external OTA antenna, when it gets here, will add one or more OTA tuners as well.

Don't think it adds another tuner just another source.